Jingle Belles - Banner Holiday

It's the end of November and that means that the Jingle Belles have guided us through 2021 with a plethora of nifty challenges to be able to "Take Back December" and not have to scramble to make all those cards that we need to send for Christmas.  And yes, I did say need.  Even if I didn't make my own cards I would still send cards as a way to let the people I know and love that I am thinking of them around the holidays.  That they are handmade gives me a little pride that I can share the talent that I have with them.  I'm not saying that it's a bad thing if you don't send Christmas cards.  I understand that there are many reasons, good reasons why someone would choose not to, but I do and I enjoy it.

This challenge revolves around the blog banner for the Jingle Belles.  They always come up with something beautiful and this one is no exception.

I had several ideas ruminating about this one and then when i was purging my e-mails I came across an e-mail from Linda Dalke with a video tutorial on making these textured trees with SU's cotton paper.  I do not have SU's cotton paper but I thought that I could use something else in my somewhat neverending stash.  I thought I rememberd having some green tissue paper - the heavier kind that comes with floral bouquets or wrapped fruit, which in this case was the latter.  I have about five 10" circles of it and decided to give it a try.  Fortunately I have a few tree dies that I knew I could try.  I used Old Olive cs as a backing for my trees.  I really like the way the one on the right came out - that was cut with an open die.  The ones on the left were more of a die plate and flattened out the texture a little more but there are slits in the body of the tree which I was able to open up a little.

I used and SU snowflake die for the snowflakes adding white glitter pen to themto have them sparkle a little (which is not really evident in the picture).  The background was something I literally tripped over in my craft room. I was moving things out of the way in front of the storage closet so HWNSNBP can get to the Christmas decorations and there were several rolls of textured paper that someone had given me while I was still working.  This roll is almost full and so textural, I thought it would make a great background.  I did lightly "finger-paint" it with some green and teal ink which is barely noticeable in the picture but more obvious IRL.

And the last touch was the bow which I hemmed and hawed over but decided to go with.  Sorting through supplies the roll of this antique ribbon caught my eye so I used that instead of a sentiment.

This may be the last Jingle Belles challenge of 2021 but it's not my last Christmas card.  I did fall behind a little and need a few more cards, but had I not partaken of these wonderfully thought-out challenges I would be in not so great shape.  

Once the tree goes up this week (per HWNSNBP) I will sit down and get the sentiments inside these, put my little sticky notes on them as to who gets what, and make sure that I have envelopes that they will fit in.  I'll try to get those last one's I need done too before the weekend so that they all can go out in the mail.  

Please visit the Jingle Belles blog and see what beautiful inspiration cards both Lauren and Stephanie have made for this challenge for week one and week two.  They are wonderfully done!

Sunset, Leftovers, and Pierogis

We caught glimpses of the sunset on the way home Thanksgiving evening in the side view mirrors.  

Rachel found a tip on making leftovers into personalized tv dinners using disposable aluminum muffin tins.  I found a package of them stuck in a cabinet and brought them with us.  We were able to put the warm items in one and the cold items in another and it was perfect to just stick the tray in the oven to reheat at home.  

The Friday after Thanksgiving is traditionally our pierogi making day and even though there was just the two of us this time, we managed to get the job done in a manageable amount of time.  Had I added that second bag of flour to the original shopping list it would have taken less time, but a quick trip to the grocery store gave a much needed break.  

I also came up with an alternative to the two spoon filling method and got out a pastry bag to pipe the filling onto the dough saving a lot of time.  You see the filling in the sections below.  A second sheet of dough goes over the top of this one and when you run the rolling pin over the whole thing it perforates the dough into the individual crescent shapes.  Then they get pinched on the edges to make sure there are no breakers when they're boiled until they float.

Making sure to poke some holes in them with a toothpick to keep them flat.

And cooling in the hallway this time.  We usually take them outside onto the picnic table to cool, but the picnic table is gone now and it was way too windy to try another set up outside so HWNSNBP improvised in the hallway with the door open for cooling before packaging.

We made 7 dozen potato/cheese and 5.5 dozen farmer's cheese.  They will be frozen and a good portion used for our Christmas Eve dinner.

Happy Thanksgiving

Happy Thanksgiving!

These Penney Black sleeping critters fit perfectly into the wreath cards I made using the Rustic Wreath stamp and dies from The Greetery.  The sentiment is from a Stampin' Up set.

Lunar Eclipse and Frosty Morning

I knew the full moon was coming and I heard that there was a good chance that the lunar eclipse would be viewable in our area if the weather permitted it.  Initially I wasn't prepared to get up between 3 and 4 in the morning to try to see it, but the night before, when nature called (as she usually does in the middle of the night) and I shuffled into the bathroom I realized that it was shortly after 3 I realized that it might be opportune to leave my camera in the bathroom just in case and also because the view of the moon was perfect through the bathroom window.  Well, since I brought the camera up, I figured it would't hurt to set my alarm which I did, and I did mention to HWNSNBP that I was.  Of course when it went off I got the usual "what the hell is that?" from him before I was able to shut it off.  

The screen on the bathroom window is on the inside of the window and I knew that I'd have to take it down in order to get a shot through the window and if there was too much reflection on the glass I figured I'd open the window even though it was in the mid 40's.  That would have worked the night before when the moon was lower in the sky at that time.  This night it was higher making the angle a little more difficult as our windows crank out and only so far.  So I wedged the camera as low as I could on the inside window sill and tried not to breath or move while taking these pictures because, of course, I did not have my tripod in the bathroom.  This was the best of about 30 or so pictures that I attempted.  I can't tell you what the settings were because I was trying everything to make this early morning endeavor a success.  Thankfully, after about 45 minutes of viewing and picture taking I was able to go back to bed for a few more hours.

We were out early one morning and there was still frost on the ground and I grabbed some pictures from behind where the car was parked.

The moss is on a log and this is some kind of mushroom/fungus that's growing on it.

 

More Christmas Creatures and Ornaments

I missed posting my cards for the last Jingle Belle Challenge which was to add an ornament element to our cards.  As you can see, this little bird is decorating his/her branch with some Christmas ornaments to make it a little more festive.

The bird on the branch stamp and die is from Your Next Stamp.  I glued it on a die cut oval and added that to the card base that I used my new Tartan Builder stencils from The Greetery on.  You can see I had a few of these cut and colored.

I also had this "creature" on the work table for the previous Christmas creature challenge.  This stamp "Pablo the Penguin"  comes from Crafty Individuals stamps, a European based stamp company that has a US distributor thankfully.  I fussy cut this guy and accidentally colored the top of his head red on the first card, but I was hoping that it would pass for a hat instead of a headband as I didn't want to discard it after all that coloring and cutting.  What do you think?

Here it is colored correctly.

I have a few more Christmas creatures you may see this year and there's a set of creatures that I used for Thanksgiving greetings you'll see later this week once they're received in the mail.  

HWNSNBP shared his "allergies" - translate that to "cold" - with me 2 weeks ago and of course he recovered from it within a couple of days, but mine developed into bronchitis and a sinus infection and has really taken the wind out of my sails putting me farther behind than I intended to be at this time of the year.  I finished one round of antibiotics and will start another one today and I'm hoping that there will be significant improvement so I can get our Thanksgiving preparations underway.   I'm still about 8-10 cards short for Christmas but I'm not worried about that.  We've started the shopping and need a few more ideas to get that done.  But there are some hand-made projects that I wanted to get to and the house will need a good cleaning before the Christmas decorations come out.  I know it will get done - it always does - I just don't want to be stressed about it and be able to enjoy it.  Hard to do when you're not feeling up to it.  Wish me luck.

Ornament Exchange

I was asked by a fellow ICADian to participate in a handmade ornament exchange this year and decided to go for it.  It was going to be a one-to-one exchange so no multiples were needed.  The hardest part was deciding what to create.  I've made many ornaments over the years and fell back on a variation of an ornament I painted many, many years ago on a heart-shaped disc of the holy family.  I was originally going to go with a simple snowman as seen here but my exchange partner lives in Arizona and I wasn't sure if a snowman would be appropriate for that climate (although a friend did suggest adding a cactus would help) so I decided on this.  I still have a dozen or so wooden slices so I adapted the pattern to the round shape of it.  I added a plain wooden bead to some suede cording for the hanger.  (For reference, that tree is 9" tip to bottom of base.)

I found a box small enough to repurpose for sending the ornament and few other goodies including some fuzzy socks, candy, hot chocolate, flavored tea, and holiday tissues.  And of course, one of my handmade cards to go along with some info about me and my family.   The ornament had to be in the mail by November 15th and it was and scheduled for a 11/19 delivery.

It was on 11/19 that a package arrived here from my exchange partner in Arizona and in it was.......

A beautiful Christmas lighthouse that stands about 10 1/2 inches tall.  I love the black and white checked ribbon and the polka dotted wreaths with the little ornaments hanging from them.  And look at the lights at the top of the beacon.  Such wonderful attention to detail.  I'm definitely going to enjoy putting this out for the holidays and I'm going to have to remember not to pack it away with the decorations so I can take it to the condo in case we have a Christmas in July party again.  Thank you so much Heidi and thanks to Debbie for organizing this.  

Amaryllis Time

I had to look back through my pictures to note when we, or rather HWNSNBP planted an amaryllis with GS1 for the first time.  It turns out that he was 2 1/2 making this his 4th amaryllis bulb and it hasn't seemed to lose it's enjoyment yet - for either of them.  I know that HWNSNBP looks forward to it.  GS2 is at that age now but his mother doesn't think he's ready for this experience yet, plus they have a cat and plants in the house present an issue of a different kind.  

But we're actually experimenting with a new technique at home this year - waxing the bulb instead of planting it.  I had seen an article about waxed amaryllis bulbs and it seemed fairly simple and then we saw some at a gardening center for $30 which made me think that it would be cost effective to give it a try on our own.  HWNSNBP picked up a bulb in a box at Home Depot for about $6-7 and a box of paraffin wax.  We already had a chip brush so it was just a matter of making the time to get this going.

I have to note that we did not have any empty cans available except beer cans and though we did use one with the top snipped off, I would not recommend it.  The aluminum is too light even with the wax in it to sit in the water while the wax melts and we wound up wadding up some aluminum foil to wedge the can in the pot of water so it wouldn't tip over.  If we do this again I will rethink using a wide mouth jar instead.   

You have to soak the bulb in water for about 4-6 hours and then take it out and dry it off.  Then you cut the growth plate off the bottom - the part with the roots - but not so much as to have the bulb peel apart like an onion.  (They say that if you leave a little of the growth plate on the bottom you may be able to plant the bulb in soil after blooming to get it to regenerate.)

Then you use the chip brush to "paint" the warm wax onto the bulb and keep coating it until you can't see the color of the bulb through the wax.  Cutting the growth plate off sends a distress signal to the bulb to flower so it will continue to grow.  The wax helps to keep the moisture in it during the growth time meaning you do not have to do anything else but display the bulb at this point unless you want to decorate it.  

I have seen some dipped into colored wax, some have been decorated with gold foil or other types of foil, and some have been glittered.  The one in the garden center was covered in red wax and a little bit of ribbon.  You can add crayons to the melted wax to color it, or melt down old candles.  Ours is not decorated at this point.  I had intended to warm up the wax with a hairdryer to add something to it but haven't gotten to that and this bulb has taken off.  It has straightened out and has grown about 4" since Saturday.  I've had to put it in a cooler dark area to slow it down.  

I'll keep you posted on the progress.

Autumn Glimpses

The last of the zinnias.  I picked what I could before the first frost last week.  

But before I got to them, the birds were having a feast on the seeds.

How many can you count?

And one that flew into the window and got stunned temporarily.  A Yellow-Rumped Warbler - something new to the backyard as they were migrating through.

A chipmunk amongst the litterfall.

And today before it rained there were bluebirds - this one close enough for a picture.

I treated myself to a little autumn pin cushion made by Fabric and Ink.  The package arrived and was enclosed in this printed bag.

And neatly wrapped with this sweet washi tape.

It's a golden gourd gnome house in fall colors.

Hand cut and hand stitched.  

A storm blew through here today with hail and some nasty winds that recovered the lawn with leaves after HWNSNBP spent a good part of the week gathering them up.  Luckily the piles of leaves he left along the roadside for leaf pick-up are still there, but he'll have more days of gathering and estimates it'll take til Thanksgiving for them all to be down.  The township road department circulates throughout the town with the big leaf vacuum until the first week in December and unless you want the grass beneath the leaves to die over the winter, you only pile them up as long as they're collecting.  

Inktober Solar Challenge and More Sunsets

I chose to do the Solar Challenge for Inktober this year and just finished coloring it the other night..... only a few days late.  Last year I did the Lunar Challenge (link here) so it was only fitting to do the solar one this time.  I started by taping together nine 4x4 tiles to make a 1 ft. square.  On that I drew the outline provided by Pilar Pulido @Zentrarte and Sara Ponce @Manosaltangle .  They also provided the list and step outs for the daily tangles.

You can see that the "solar" image is divided into 31 segments or sections - one for each day of October.

I decided to use a more fall forward color palett and left out the blues and greens.  All the tangles were done in black and white and when they were all added I used my watercolor pencils to add color.  

A lot of these tangles were organic in nature and it was a challenge to fit them into some of those segments but I did it.  Glad it's done so I can move onto November with a clean slate in that department.

We were at the condo Thursday and Friday nights and were treated to some stellar November sunsets.  The position of the sunset is just about out of range at this time of year.  But since HWNSNBP made it possible to open the screens on the back porch I was able to lean out and catch what I could on the left.

I didn't recall ever having seen such an intense orange and then.......

the next night

it became even more intense.  

Jingle Belles - Holiday Creature Feature Part 2

Still adding creatures to this Jingle Belles Challenge.  Using up the rest of the images that I colored from the Snome Time set by Craft Consortium.  I used a forest die for the background on these and again the evergreens from Cottage Cutz.  Oh, and the banner and Merry Christmas message are Sizzix dies.  

I had some other images stamped and colored for this challenge but haven't got to them yet but that doesn't mean they won't make it into my Christmas card stash.  Time to count up what I have done and figure out how many more I will need as we've entered November.  

So I will now head over to the Jingle Belles blog and check out the other creatures featured there.  I noticed they've got quite a few.  It's always nice to see what the others have made and to gather ideas for cards in the future.